Robbery-Homicide Division

The Robbery-Homicide Division (RHD) of the Los Angeles Police Department is tasked with investigating and/or providing surveillance support for a wide variety of select crimes that are often high-profile in nature, including incidents that result in injury or death to an officer, and threats against officers.

RHD is comprised of approximately 110 sworn and civilian personnel and it has command of five sections, each under the supervision of a lieutenant. These sections also serve as liaisons between other divisions to ensure that major investigations are shared across geographic boundaries if it is needed for investigative purposes.

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The Robbery Special Section (RSS) is responsible for investigating the following on a City-wide basis:

Extortions or threats of extortion when:

a prolonged investigation is required, and

the extortion does not involve a juvenile as the suspect or victim, and

the suspect has threatened to do unlawful injury to the person or property of another;

Extortions by any means, including explosives, involving an adult or juvenile victim or suspect and the extortion is directed against a bank, bank employee, bank messenger, federally insured credit union, savings and loan institution, or armored car facility;

A “cold case” homicide is defined as any unsolved homicide in the City that was committed more than five years ago, and has no significant leads, and is no longer being actively investigated by area detectives based on a lack of solvability factors and/or workload.

The Special Investigation Section is the LAPD's tactical surveillance unit. The primary mission of SIS is to determine if the suspects under surveillance are connected to the crimes under investigation, and, if needed, to locate and arrest the suspects. SIS also handles all of the LAPD's kidnap-ransom exchanges.

Although SIS is assigned to the Robbery-Homicide Division, its resources are available to any division seeking surveillance on active criminals or crimes.

At the end of Season 1 of The Closer, Captain Russell Taylor is promoted to the rank of Commander by Assistant Chief Pope and becomes the head of the Robbery-Homicide Division, after his predecessor, Commander Scott, retires. Before his promotion to Commander, Taylor was assigned to RHD, most likely as the assistant commanding officer. In “Hindsight, Part 1”, Taylor mentions that he was the Captain of Robbery-Homicide in 2004 during the Reese Murders when Mark Hickman was fired for his perjury.

After Commander Taylor transferred out of RHD in Season 4 of The Closer, it is not known who assumed command of the division.

In the Major Crimes Universe, SIS appears to be under the command of the Special Operations Bureau rather than RHD as seen on their business cards. Reportedly, their offices are also located within the Special Operations Bureau, further corroborating the info visible on their business cards.

In the Major Crimes Universe, SIS also appears to provide undercover security details for civilians when protection is required and it also has detectives working undercover in criminal organizations.

In the Major Crimes Universe, most of the high-profile investigations that would be conducted by the Homicide Special Section (HSS) are handled by the Major Crimes Division. It's not known if the existence of the Major Crimes Division has made the Homicide Special Section obsolete, or if it still remains with reduced investigative responsibilities.

It is also possible that HSS exists in its original form, handling cases that cross divisional lines or are higher profile than usual, but not high-profile enough to be handled by Major Crimes.

At times over the series, Major Crimes is mentioned asking for information on open cases from Robbery-Homicide and then effectively taking them over due to the cases tying into their own case in some manner. During season 5 of Major Crimes, Lieutenant Provenza gets Buzz Watson the Robbery-Homicide case files on the unsolved murders of his father and uncle so that he can finally get justice.

In the five part "Hindsight" arc, its revealed that in 2004, Michael Tao, Stephanie Dunn and Mark Hickman were all detectives working for Robbery-Homicide when Officer Malcolm Reese was murdered by Daniel Price. The three investigated the case, but after Hickman's perjury cost the LAPD the case and the murders of DDA Rachel Gray and her bodyguard Eric Dunn, Hickman was fired. Stephanie subsequently transferred to Narcotics.